Manually closable seal



Filed Sept. 9, 1955 v IN V EN TOR. 5/6020 W/WOBZ/PG United State Patent 8 Claims. (Cl. 292325) N. J., assignor to N. .L, a corporation This invention relates to seals or tags used upon goods, for one one reason among others, to indicate the origin of the goods or the conditions under which the goods were produced or processed; and relates, more particularly, to such seals which may be applied to and removed from the goods without using any special tool, and, once applied to goods, cannot be removed therefrom and reused.

An important object of this invention is the provision of such a seal having a sharp-pointed wire shackle enabling application of the seal by piercing of the goods, such as meat or the like, by the shackle, and so arranged as to cover said sharp point when the seal is on the goods.

Another important object is the provision of such a seal having means for initially guiding such a wire shackle into place in association with a sealing or locking portion of the device.

The foregoing and other more or less obvious objects are accomplished by the present invention of which several embodiments are illustrated in the accompanying drawing without, however, limiting the invention to the particular disclosed embodiments.

In the drawing:

Figure 1 is a perspective view illustrating a seal according to a first or preferred embodiment of this invention as applied to a piece of meat.

Fig. 2 is a plan View looking at the inner side of said seal in open condition as delivered by the seal manufacturer to a user.

Fig. 3 is a somewhat similar plan view, looking at the outer side of the seal.

Fig. 4 is a view, somewhat similar to Fig. 2, illustrating a first step in the closing or locking of the seal.

Fig. 5 is a sectional view of said seal substantially on the line 55 of Fig. 1.

Fig. 6 is a sectional view, somewhat similar to Fig. 5, illustrating a seal according to a second embodiment of the invention. 7

Figs. 7 and 8 are views, somewhat similar to Fig. 2, illustrating, respectively, seals according to third and fourth embodiments of the invention.

Referring to the first embodiment of Figs. 1-5, the illustrated seal comprises a wire, shackle element 10 and a preferably sheet-metal sealing or locking element 12 adapted securely to interconnect opposite end portions of the shackle element.

The locking element 12 is stamped and formed, in the shape shown in the drawing, from sheet metal which, preferably, is only slightly resilient and is of such composition as to function in the manner hereinafter described.

A fixed end portion 14 of the shackle 10 is non-removably secured into a curled end 16 of the locking element as by soldering, crimping or other suitable means. The other or piercing end portion 17 of the shackle is formed with a sharp point 18, enabling the shackle to be pushed easily through a portion of a piece of meat 20, after wh1ch said piercing end may be locked within the lOCklIlg element 12.

The locking element 12, shown in its open or initi 2,800,349 Patented July .23, 1957 form in Figs. 2, 3 and 4, has a pair of clasping lips 22 bent inwardly at the end of element 12 which is remote from the curled end 16. These lips, preferably, are separated by a cut-out portion 24 into which, as shown by dotted lines in Fig. 4, the piercing end 17 of the shackle may be initially placed to aim it accurately at and through several loops 26 formed by transversely slitting the sheet metal of locking element 12 along parallel lines and expanding inwardly several bridge portions between such slits to constitute said loops. As a matter of convenience and for suitable breadth of terminology in this description, the loops 26, collectively, are sometimes referred to hereinafter as a shackle-receiving recess.

The thus-giuded piercing end 17 of the shackle is then pushed through the loops 26 until the sharp point 18 abuts the curled end 16, after which the shackle is bent sharply to one side at about a right angle to form a transverse shackle portion 27. Then, the locking element 12 is folded upon itself on a straight, transverse line of Weakness 29 which is formed by providing a score line in the outer face of the locking element 12 a little to the right of the shackle portion 27 (as viewed in Fig. 4), thereby constituting a shackle-anchoring portion or member 28 and a clasp portion or member 30 at opposite sides of said line of weakness. It should be noted that the term clasp portion as used herein is not limited to such a portion necessarily having lips 22 or equivalent means.

As such folding together of portions 28 and 30 is completed to bring them into substantially intimate, face-toface association, the lips 22, being curved slightly back upon themselves, snap over the curled end 16 suificiently to hold the portions 28 and 30 firmly together as shown in Fig. 5. The clasp portion 30 has a right-angular recess 32 formed therein to provide space for the loops 26 and the portions 17 and 27 of the shackle when the device is thus snapped closed. The flat or non-recessed area of clasp portion 30 is indicated in dotted lines in Fig. 5. It is obvious that, with the shackle 10 bent sharply within the locking element 12, as described, and the clasp member 30 folded or bent into such face-to-face association with the member 28, the clasp member 30 blocks the shackle against withdrawal from the recess formed by the loops 26 so that the shackle cannot be pulled out of said locking element.

A processors name and/or certification mark may be applied to the outer face of the locking element 12 and, thus, the device may function to signify the origin or conditions of processing of the goods to which the seal is applied.

The seal is usually removed by a consumer or user of the goods by cutting the shackle 10 with shears, or a cleaver or other cutting device, although it can be removed by reversely bending or unclasping clasp portion 30, after which the shackle 10 can be pulled clear of the anchoring portion 28. However, the last-mentioned method of removal, which is the only method by which a dishonest person might conceivably hope to make the seal reusable on a spurious piece of goods or product, inevitably causes the clasp portion 30 to break away from the remainder of the device along the line of weakness 29, thus effectively defeating any attempt to reuse the seal.

The second embodiment of Fig. 6 differs from the first embodiment in that the curled end 16a is curled downwardly or outwardly so that it does not form an abutment for the free end of the shackle 10a. That end of the shackle may have a blunt end 34 rather than a sharply pointed end as said end may be exposed in use. The second embodiment may be used when piercing is not necessary and permits the loop of the shackle to be made quite small by threading the shackle through the loops 26 and out of the device before the shackle is bent to form the transverse shackle portion 27 and before the seal is closed.

The distinctive characteristic of the third embodiment of Fig. 7 isthat therecess 32a is- T-shaped, rather than right-angular, thus enabling the user to so bend the shackle that its tranverse portion 27 may extend toward either side of the device.

The distinctive characteristic of the fourth embodiment of Fig. 8 is that the clasp portion 30a is somewhat narrower than the shackle-anchoring portion 28. This characteristic facilitates opening of the. device when no cutting implement is available as ones fingers, when thus.

opening the device, would not engage the side edges of the portion 30a, whereby the latter may easily be swung. outwardly of the remainder of the device.

It' should be understood that each of the mentionedcharacteristics of the structures of Figs. 7 and 8 may be employed with devices having the different curled-end arrangements illustrated in Figs. and 6; also, that the disclosed concepts may be employed in various other seal or tag structures without departing from the invention as set forth in the following claims.

I claim:

1. A manually closable seal comprising a sheet-metal locking element having a shackle-anchoring member and a clasp member which, in use, is bendable relatively to said anchoring member about a line of weakness between the two to bring the two said members into substantially intimate, face-to-face association, and a wire shackle having one end fixed to said anchoring member and an anchorable portion toward its other end; said anchoring member having a shackle-receiving recess adapted to receive said anchorable portion endwisely therewithin in' substantial parallelism with the principal plane of said anchoring member and to prevent it from angularly shifting bodily relatively to said anchorable portion; said shackle having a portion, immediately adjacent to said anchorable portion, adapted to be bent relatively to the latter to constitute a transverse shackle portion; and said clasp member, when bent into such face-to-face association with said anchoring member, being in blocking relationship with said transverse portion of the shackle whereby to prevent withdrawal of said anchorable portion from said shacklereceiving recess.

2. A seal according to claim 1, said shackle-receiving recess extending substantially perpendicular to said line of weakness and said clasp member having at its free edge a pair of clasping lips with a space therebetween in line with the line of extension of said recess for receiving and guiding a portion of the shackle into said recess.

3. A seal according to claim 1, said shackle having a sharp end and said anchoring member having a portion extending protectively over said sharp end when the anchorable portion of the shackle is anchored to said anchoring member.

4. A seal according to claim 1, said shackle having a sharp end and said anchoring member having a curled end portion within which its said one end is fixedly held, said curled-end portion constituting a protective covering for the sharp end of the shackle.

5. A seal according to claim 1, said shackle-receiving recess comprising loops struck up from said anchoring member at the latters inner face and said clasp member having an angular recess to accommodate said struck-up loops and said transverse portion of the shackle therewithin.

6. A seal according to claim 5, said angular recess being T-shaped to accommodate said transverse portion of the shackle therewithin in either of two opposite directions to which it may be bent.

7. A seal according to claim 1, said shackle-receiving recess being adapted to hold the anchorable portion of the shackle therewithin substantially perpendicular to said line of weakness and said anchoring member at the end of said recess most distant from said line of weakness being substantially in non-alignment with the anchorable portion of the shackle, thereby enabling the shackle to extend substantially beyond said most distant end of the recess.

8. A seal according to claim 7, said claspmember having at its free edge a pair of clasping lips with a space therebetween in line with said shackle-receiving recess for receiving and guiding a portion of the shackle into said recess and enabling a thus-extended part of the shackle to extend through said space when the seal is closed.

Brooks June 7, 1910 Di Palma June 10, 1952 

